Kahwi Leonard and Paul George are on their way to Staples Center for next season, both as members of the Los Angeles Clippers, not the Lakers.
This seems more surreal than fact that the NBA will be fixated on the team not wearing purple in Los Angeles for next season.
Sure the thought of Anthony Davis paired up with LeBron James and a cast of castoffs is intriguing. However the Lakers were a lottery team last season and the Clippers hung with Golden State in the first round of the playoffs.
Keep in mind that the Clippers had to sell off their future to get George now and are nearly $8 million over the salary cap with George and Leonard combining for over $66 million of the allotted $114 million for the 2019-20 season.
The dynamic here is that the Clippers were always the Chicago Cubs, the St. Louis Blues, and the Detroit Lions of the NBA. They were the lovable losers that you always wanted to see break through one day, but ended up being the butt of decades worth of jokes. The Clippers have moved twice since being founded in Buffalo in 1970, have never made the NBA Finals and sport only two banners for winning the Pacific Division in 2013 and 2014.
There was also that part about being owned by a racist who was forced to sell the team to Steve Ballmer in 2014. That guy was also banned from the league for life once the sale was completed.
Ballmer would have been thought of as a genius by getting Leonard at the expense of the Lakers alone. Throw in adding George to the mix and he may just be the smartest owner in sports (for this week at least). This was made all the more newsworthy as the Clippers somehow managed to push the fact that there was a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in Los Angeles last night that stretched all the way to Las Vegas, to the sidebar of notable sports network websites ESPN, CBS Sports and Fox Sports.
In fact, most of us on the east coast did not even know of the news until we woke up this morning and checked Twitter. (Unless you fell asleep on the couch with one of those aforementioned networks on TV.)
The Clippers are going to be winners on the court and Ballmer needs to do one more thing to stop the comparisons to the Lakers once and for all.
Get the Clippers out of Los Angeles.
The Clippers are never going to compete with the Lakers for the marquee as long as the teams share the Staples Center, unless the Clippers win the NBA title for the next 15 consecutive seasons. The smart move would be to wait for their lease at Staples Center to expire in 2024, win a title or two, and then get the hell out of Dodge. The Clippers owe Los Angeles nothing. Ironically there were rumors of Ballmer financing the construction of a new arena in Inglewood for the Clippers to move into. Inglewood is also where the NFL's Los Angeles Rams and Chargers will be sharing a new stadium after next season.
Seattle is putting over $825 million to renovate KeyArena for their upcoming NHL expansion franchise in 2021. This is the perfect selling point for Ballmer to move the franchise north. Hell, he would not even need to change the name after the move. You already have the Mariners and the Seahawks, so why not invite one more to the party?
-JC24